Double Overtime, December 8th...

Hi all-it’s time for another review of the weekend…in your usual jumping-around-the-league-like-a-drunken-frog fashion…

MVP award? Hand it over: David Beauregard: 27 games, 31 goals. In early December. Just for comparison, his nearest rival, Coventry’s Adam Calder, is eleven goals adrift in second place, having played one less game. Oh, and he scored a hat-trick in ten minutes on Friday against Belfast to win the Phoenix the game at the Odyssey.
Which means that when the two face each other at the Skydome next Saturday as Beauregard’s Manchester visit Calder’s Coventry, you wouldn’t really consider a shut-out to be on the cards.
Oh yes, and I know we keep mentioning this, and also that the man himself probably doesn’t like much to be made of it, but still:
The man has scored 31 goals and counting WITH ONLY ONE WORKING EYE!

If you’re a Giants fan, look away now: Not the greatest of weekends for the title-chasers from Northern Ireland, was it? Two goals scored as one of the most potent offences in the league failed to turn up (although, in their defence, they are a little bruised and battered at the moment) and ten conceded as Stevie Lyle seemingly decided to take the weekend off, being pulled against Sheffield on Saturday as his team conceded five with no reply. Two losses to their near rivals, including one in their own rink, means that the Odyssey men now need to make up some ground in the next week or two or risk putting a serious dent in their title hopes.

Just call them “the Hot Line”: Yes, the nickname’s corny, but the duo of Adam Calder and Dan Carlson are now old news as far as the offensive group opponents fear the most. The Phoenix trio of David Beauregard, Tony Hand and Luke Fulghum have been tearing opposition defences apart almost for fun this season, with a combined total of 54 goals between them. For the record, Manchester have scored a total of 94 in the league. Even allowing for the Hot Line’s goals also being scored in the CC cup and assuming that they’ve scored four or five each in that competition (the EIHL doesn’t do broken-down stats for goals and assists by competition on its site) that is still 40 goals-almost half of the team total.
Which means, put simply, that if you’re an opposition fan and you see these three line up opposite your players at a face-off, you’d better hope they don’t get down your team’s end too often.

Wanted: the Skydome Sniper: I’m not sure whether this is just Coventry or a problem that exists elsewhere in the league, but in the Skydome against Cardiff last night we had two incidents which almost defied description-the first saw the 6’4, 240lb Doug MacIver nudged into the boards from behind by the 5’11, 195lb Adam Calder-a routine collision, you might think. Well, it was-right up to the point where the bigger MacIver hit the deck in a manner resembling, as the saying goes, a big sack of excrement, before throwing his arms out wide and lying motionless on the ice until Wes Jarvis decided to thump Calder, at which point he got up and skated away as if nothing had happened.
OK…perhaps the hit was harder than it looked-we’ll give MacIver the benefit of the doubt, mainly because he’s a big lad and looks like you wouldn’t want to meet him in a back alley of a dark night. But then, two periods later, things got stranger…

Let’s use logic for a moment-if someone 5’10 and 165lbs (Danny Stewart) hits someone 6’5 and 235lbs (Brad Voth) who do you expect to go spinning through the air like Anna Pavlova performing the Dying Swan? Well-you’re wrong-mainly because Voth, like MacIver, had clearly been hit by a high velocity round fired from the crowd at the moment of impact, judging by the way he perfomed a dive that Tom Daley would have been proud of-the full 3 back somersault with 2.5 twists, although he didn’t quite manage to get into the pike position before hitting the net-a maneuver for which he rightly received two minutes for diving.

Now, clearly someone in the crowd at the Skydome is determined to live up to the reputation unfairly given to them by eschewing the usual streamers, horns et al and smuggling in a Barrett Sniper Rifle under their coat, because that’s the only explanation I can find for such a spectacular spinning fall.

On an unrelated note, Blaze won a pulsating game 4-2. And the best bit is-if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, you can see both Olympian efforts on Sky on Friday…

Supergoalie takes a vacation: Kevin Reiter had a weekend he’d want to forget (and showed his mortality) in Basingstoke’s net, letting in 11 goals against Hull over the weekend (Hull!), although on Sunday at least, his team-mates bailed him out by scoring 8 at the other end. Certainly Sunday night in Hull, with the Bison prevailing by two goals in fourteen, was a game which wasn’t for goalie fans. By all accounts, though, everyone else loved it.

When you soar with the eagles the night before, sometimes you crawl with the insects the day after: Sheffield had the most schizophrenic weekend by far, confidently disposing of high-flying Belfast on Saturday in front of a joyous home crowd. However, they were brought back to earth the following night, in a freezing Murrayfield, as the Capitals doggedly pushed them all the way to penalty shots in a game which they only very narrowly won. If you asked your average hockey coach, though, they’d say that it’s performances like the second one, pulling out a win against a stubborn opponent away from home, that win you the titles-the flamboyant wins are just the cherries on top…

After all (and this is something people always seem to forget) you get the same amount of points whoever you beat, and however many you beat them by…

Must...avoid...innuendo: Newcastle have finally solved their defensive crisis, signing ex Cardiff Devil and Bracknell Bee Likit Andersson, who, according to the Devils doctors, was done for the season. Still, at 35 years young, there's always the bonus that Rob Wilson now has someone else to tell war stories in the changing room...with those two and Ed Courtenay lined up the Vipers may be able to put out a line with the oldest average age ever seen in British hockey. Rumours that their next target is Steve Moria "to provide a bit of youthful energy", however, are unfounded.
There. I managed to mention a player called "Likit" without descending to smut...:)


And on that note...that's your weekend reviewed...